Barclays executive chairman John McFarlane on Wednesday set its investment bank’s leadership a challenge of matching its performance so far this year over the longer term, after flat revenues and a decline in restructuring costs from a year ago helped drive second-quarter pre-tax profits to a two-year high.

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office has approached Barclays with a deferred prosecution agreement as it looks to resolve a long-running probe into how the bank secured emergency funding from Middle Eastern investors during the financial crisis, according to a person familiar with the matter.